Region: California
The Bleak California Housing Picture By Numbers
Key recent studies and data can inform the legislative debate
As the debate over SB 50 and other state legislative efforts to boost California’s housing supply heats up, it’s worth reviewing some of the data about how dire the housing situation is in the state. Here are some tidbits: High Home Prices and Rents: According to the California Legislative Analysts Office, the average California home …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Major Housing Bill, Take 3: New Amendments Announced For Local Flexibility
Will Governor Newsom now put his weight behind Sen. Wiener’s SB 50?
California State Senator Scott Wiener launched his third legislative attempt today at boosting California’s housing supply. SB 50 aims to address the state’s massive housing shortage, which has resulted in high home prices and rents, gentrification, displacement, inequality, homelessness, and a mass middle-class exodus to high-emission states like Texas and Arizona. Because this housing undersupply …
CONTINUE READINGRevolt of the Captive Scientists
Trump’s Scientific Advisory Board Slams Proposed EPA Rules
Trump has appointed most of the members of EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), many of them selected from industry. That effort to stack SAB in favor of deregulation apparently wasn’t a complete success. In draft reports issued this week, the SAB scathingly criticized those efforts and even went so far as to give a nod …
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CONTINUE READINGLight Over Darkness
New L.A. street lighting design competition spotlights barrier to walking, cycling, and public transit use
A design competition to improve street lighting launched by Mayor Eric Garcetti last week could help Los Angeles meet its climate targets by improving the experience of pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit users on city streets. The competition invites students and design professionals to submit ideas for a new standard L.A. streetlight design, with a …
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CONTINUE READINGAn Oil and Gas Setback in Los Angeles Would Not Create Billions in Liability
A recent report from the Petroleum Administrator relied on incorrect and incomplete legal assumptions about the City’s potential liability to oil and gas operators. Here’s why it matters.
This week, Sean Hecht and I (in our capacity as attorneys in the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic at UCLA School of Law) sent a letter on behalf of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust to Mayor Eric Garcetti, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office, and the Los Angeles City Council. (Our letter built …
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CONTINUE READINGPost-Madrid, China And California Have An Opportunity To Lead
As international climate action falters, the two climate leaders can fill the void
Note: this post is co-authored with Fan Dai, director of the University of California’s California-China Climate Institute. With the high-profile failure of last week’s UN climate conference in Madrid, the focus of international action on climate change will need to shift to political leaders of key global economies. We attended the conference in Madrid on …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Decade in Review
Like many humans, the Twenty-First Century’s teenage years were stormy.
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” That pretty much sums up the ten years from January 2010 to January 2020. As the decade began, Barrack Obama was in the White House and the Democrats controlled Congress but were one vote short of a filibuster-proof majority in the House. Under …
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CONTINUE READINGMaking It Work: Administrative Reform of California’s Housing Framework
How recent legislative changes have been the state greater power to enable prohousing policies
This blog post is coauthored by Chris Elmendorf, Eric Biber, Paavo Monkkonen, and Moira O’Neill. As California’s housing crisis swirls through the national news, attention has focused on statewide upzoning bills. Sen. Scott Wiener’s ballyhooed effort to allow 4-5 story buildings near transit was tabled until 2020, but earlier this fall the legislature effectively terminated …
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CONTINUE READINGBless the Rains Down in Los Angeles
As a wet winter approaches, Los Angeles County focuses on initiatives to capture rainwater and reduce ocean runoff
(Note: I previously wrote a law review article published in 2016 in the Villanova Environmental Law Journal, accessible here, about related policy suggestions for improving rainwater capture in reference to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.) If you live in California, or have been in the state over the last couple weeks, you’ll know that we …
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CONTINUE READINGNew Report: California Climate Risk and Insurance
UCLA & UC Berkeley Researchers Issue Report on Climate Change and Insurance in California
(This post is part of a series on the issue of climate change and insurance that my colleague Sean Hecht and I are writing, inspired by a symposium that the law schools co-organized with the California Department of Insurance earlier this year. You can find more information on the symposium here. My initial post is available …
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